Nato To Warn Yugoslav Leader Of Air Attacks

October 24, 1998|By CRAIG R. WHITNEY The New York Times

PARIS — NATO ambassadors in Brussels on Friday ordered the alliance's two top generals to Belgrade today to warn Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic again that he would face air strikes unless he ordered troops and special police to withdraw from Kosovo or return to barracks by Tuesday.

Milosevic agreed to the withdrawals from the province in southern Serbia 10 days ago under the threat of air strikes, but the alliance later suspended action to give him more time to comply.

Serbian forces have continued firing on ethnic Albanian villages and preventing tens of thousands of refugees from returning home.

Gen. Wesley Clark of the United States, supreme commander of NATO, and Gen. Klaus Naumann of Germany, its highest European military chief, are to warn Milosevic this weekend that they have authority to order air strikes after 8 p.m. local time (2 p.m. Eastern time) on Tuesday, allied officials said.

But the officials said the allied governments could instruct their ambassadors in Brussels to postpone the deadline again if Milosevic showed signs of complying.

``Milosevic may have decided that the threat of air strikes is not as great this week as it was last week,'' an allied official said.

``That's why we're sending the two generals to Belgrade.''

Officials in Brussels said Milosevic had ordered one army brigade to move out of Kosovo, as he had agreed to do in the agreement he reached on Oct. 13 with U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke.

Since then, the officials said a military police battalion failed to withdraw as agreed and two Yugoslav army units normally stationed in Kosovo were sent out of their barracks into the field, supposedly to counter attacks by the Kosovo Liberation Army, composed of ethnic Albanians fighting for independence for the province. Kosovo is part of Serbia but had autonomy until Milosevic abolished it in 1989.

``The units in the field are not being used to fight the Kosovo Liberation Army, but to take villages hostage,'' an allied official said. ``We don't want to see the Yugoslav army deployed against civilians.''

This will be Clark's third mission to Belgrade since Oct. 12. He and Naumann are to report on Sunday to allied ambassadors, who will decide by Tuesday what to do next, officials said. One diplomat said the allies were aware that extending the deadline yet again or watering it down could damage their credibility.

NATO authorized its commanders to go ahead with air strikes, but later suspended the order after the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution calling on Yugoslavia to withdraw the motorized special police forces, tanks and army units that it first sent into the province in February to quell the separatist revolt.

The resolution called for a cease-fire and for guarantees that international organizations would be unhindered in attempts to provide aid to thousands of refugees who had taken to the hills to get away from the fighting. About 10,000 are still without shelter, according to reports from the province, which is home to 2 million people, 90 percent of them ethnic Albanians.

Russia, which had worked with the allies to press Milosevic to stop the attacks, parted ways with them when the allies agreed with the United States that the resolution authorized the use of force.

Russia opposes a proposed Security Council resolution, demanded by Canada and other countries, that would authorize NATO to protect up to 2,000 observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that Milosevic agreed to accept to monitor the situation in Kosovo after a cease-fire.

Canada has said it would refuse to provide observers unless they had protection. Russia, as a permanent member of the Security Council, has the power to veto the resolution.